like wideawake sez, we can delete spam and ban users, but have no input on forum membership signup. As far as any suggestions, a PM to site owner might get through, kinda questionable that he even reads the general threads, other than the rare times he shows up. So he might see something posted here... or might not.

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"It still will happen, from time to time, this magic moment, when you're out with only a few friends..." - G. Rainfray

Had this issue at work. We initially just deleted them manually, but the volume got ridiculous (10,000 posts in a night). Ended up implementing a captcha (human verification thing) on the membership signup AND putting in an email verification step for accounts. I think email verification is the key, cuts out automated spammer accounts.

2:04 AM (Los Angeles time), 10:04 AM (Paris time). While you guys were (hopefully) asleep, I deleted tens of "chinese" accounts that must have filled over 10 pages of spam. Largest I've seen in a long time. Something needs to be done.

I too have spent a LOT of time deleting posts.
I don't anymore.
There is just too much of this that goes on.
It's like trying to refill a bathtub that has a hole in it... Sure, you could do that. OR, you could fix the bathtub.

I don't know how other forums work behind the scenes but it *seems* that there are well-established, pro-active ways of preventing this garbage. Not just the retroactive (time-consuming) way of having the mods delete threads. Some of these pro-active ways of policing forums are mentioned in this thread.

*Seems* (my opinion) like the owner of this website, who I am appreciative of and have respect for, has a life outside of Swaylocks and that Swaylocks is not a priority. So be it. I don't fault him in the slightest. It seems that Swaylocks was a pet project but not a top priority. I get it.

IMO, Swaylocks has been on life-support for the last few years. Never thought I'd say this but, the *current* ERBB is hands-down better than the *current* Swaylocks... And, really, Instagram blows doors on the both of them... No other surfboard forum has the creativity regarding building surfcraft that Swaylocks has BUT, the ERBB has WAY more involvement and is smoother operating.

Now, plenty of other forums regarding other topics (many of which I frequent) seem to be doing fine. So, I don't think that it's the platform of "surfboard design forum" that is dead or dying, it's just that this particular forum doesn't get the attention that it needs to thrive. In my opinion...
Again, no blame for that. It is what it is.